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Seeing that I work at the alphabetically sorted first “A” in FAANG, I don’t think it could be considered a “tier 3” company. When a recruiter from Amazon Retai

Seeing that I work at the alphabetically sorted first “A” in FAANG, I don’t think it could be considered a “tier 3” company. When a recruiter from Amazon Retail reached out to me about an SDE position, I wasn’t interested in either relocating, working as a software developer at any large company or doing the prerequisite DS&A monkey dance. We kept talking and she suggested that I apply for a fully remote role consulting (yes it’s a full time position) in AWS Professional Services. I specialize in “application modernization” which is a fancy term for cloud enterprise application development + “Devops” + the standard type of work architects do at other companies. But as far as the startup I worked for being “desperate”. I got hired at my previous company because of an informal lunch with the then new CTO who needed someone to lead the effort to make the company more “cloud native” and help them pivot toward a micro service architecture because they wanted to sell the services as backend to large health care companies. Hint: I did that well enough to go from never opening the AWS console in mid 2018 to working at AWS two years later. My interview was all behavioral where I talked through some of my previous company changing successes at a startup and a company where I led the integration effort when they were on an acquisition spree. My “TC” is fine. It would be better if my unvested AMZN RSUs didn’t drop by half since I got hired. (Yes I knew the gatekeeping was going to start when i wrote the first post above)

iLoveOncall 4y ago
That's a long story to hide the fact that by refusing to do LeetCode interviews you were not offered a software engineering position. You most likely are an SA, which is a position open even to business degree holders and is barely technical, no wonder you didn't have to LeetCode.
- scarface74 4y ago
  You mean not being “offered” a position I didn’t want? I have never had any desire to be a software developer at a large company. I like being able to: - be on pre-sales calls with customers - writing the proposals/statements of work - deal with the decision makers from the customers side - architect the entire solution from the development side and the infrastructure/“dev ops side” - do the actual work - lead the user acceptance testing - move on to another project You seem to be under the mistaken impression that I care about titles? I go to work to exchange labor for money to support my addiction to food and shelter. My “TC” allows me to do that very well. I a not an “SA”. I do hands on billable software development that goes in production at the client site. In the past two years I’ve done hands on keyboard coding in Python, C#, JavaScript, and Go. BTW, by the time I graduated from college in 1996, I had been a hobbyist programmer in 4 different assembly languages. I’ve maintained proprietary compiler tool chains for Windows CE devices and spent half my career bit twiddling in C and C++ with a little inline assembly. I doubt that you’re going to “out geek” me.
  - anon7725 4y ago
    Just for context, people in scarface’s type of role can “out-TC” many platform/product engineers of the equivalent level, depending on how rewards are structured. The downside that I’ve noticed is that field roles tend to be cut first in response to market weather/customer focus. But a skilled engineer doing field work is a valued commodity in general.
    - scarface74 4y ago
      Yes and No. If I worked for an outside consulting company that would be true - with the inherent risks you stated. Working at AWS in ProServe, our compensation structure is the same as SDEs - 4 year initial offer, large prorated signing bonus, 5/15/40/40 RSU vesting schedule. It’s different for sales. The bright side is that there is always work. Worse case, I can be “hired” by another internal team that needs someone to implement a solution to show off a new service.
      - itake 4y ago
        I think you’re misrepresenting your story in your original comment. If you want to be an SDE at a Tier 1, you have to leetcode. There is no persuading the interviewer to pass you without testing your leetcode. If you are comfortable taking a non-SDE role, then there are opportunities at tech companies that don’t require programming skills or leetcode. I’m happy you have found an alternative career path, but you’re comparing apples and oranges.
        scarface74 4y ago
        There are 2.7 million developers in the US. Most don’t work at a tier 1 tech company. My original story said nothing about where I work. I was originally referring to my process to get a software development job from 1996-2018. But it’s not an accident I make “FAANG money” without doing “leetCode”. While I fell into a position at AWS, high level consultants make more with the same skillset than your typical BigTech SDE once they build a base. It’s higher risk and more hustle though. I only brought up where I work now when someone brought up the r/cscareerquestions type reply of “TC”. I am very sincere about my lack of desire to ever be a software engineer for a large company. I would give up my current compensation and jump back over to the enterprise dev/architect side of compensation before I ever did that. Again, I already had the big house in the burbs, retirement savings, etc before AWS ever reached out to me. If I leave my current job at the time of my choosing, it will probably be a compensation cut and probably for some unknown company. I know for a fact that I could call up a few former managers who now work at different companies and they would give me a job faster than I could say “I am looking for…”
- selimthegrim 4y ago
  If you read his past post history he has had what you would call "technical" jobs before, even if you don't count this one.
- tom-_- 4y ago
  You seem to be implying "software engineers" require much more than a business degree, in which case I believe you to be a young person (< 30) and I forgive your naivety and the trolliness of your comment. SWE is not a profession that requires deep education in math and science, like a physicist or neurologist. Having anything beyond a bachelor's in CS is not worthwhile outside of maybe ML..maybe. A person with business degree who grinds toy problems on LC will almost always do better on FAANG coding interviews than a CS new grad with no grinding full stop. The degree is just a stamp for junior engineers to get their foot in the door, which is no longer needed once you have a stamp from a reputable tech company.
  - amusedcyclist 4y ago
    Yes, SWE's require Computer Science, if you don't think so you've never done any real SWE work. Business majors do not teach you the problem solving ability required for even basic SWE work.
    - tom-_- 4y ago
      CS fundamentals can be readily learned without obtaining a degree. If you don't think so, then you've never met a self-taught programmer and are probably (no offense) someone with limited professional experience.

iLoveOncall 4y ago

That's a long story to hide the fact that by refusing to do LeetCode interviews you were not offered a software engineering position. You most likely are an SA, which is a position open even to business degree holders and is barely technical, no wonder you didn't have to LeetCode.

scarface74 4y ago
You mean not being “offered” a position I didn’t want? I have never had any desire to be a software developer at a large company. I like being able to: - be on pre-sales calls with customers - writing the proposals/statements of work - deal with the decision makers from the customers side - architect the entire solution from the development side and the infrastructure/“dev ops side” - do the actual work - lead the user acceptance testing - move on to another project You seem to be under the mistaken impression that I care about titles? I go to work to exchange labor for money to support my addiction to food and shelter. My “TC” allows me to do that very well. I a not an “SA”. I do hands on billable software development that goes in production at the client site. In the past two years I’ve done hands on keyboard coding in Python, C#, JavaScript, and Go. BTW, by the time I graduated from college in 1996, I had been a hobbyist programmer in 4 different assembly languages. I’ve maintained proprietary compiler tool chains for Windows CE devices and spent half my career bit twiddling in C and C++ with a little inline assembly. I doubt that you’re going to “out geek” me.
- anon7725 4y ago
  Just for context, people in scarface’s type of role can “out-TC” many platform/product engineers of the equivalent level, depending on how rewards are structured. The downside that I’ve noticed is that field roles tend to be cut first in response to market weather/customer focus. But a skilled engineer doing field work is a valued commodity in general.
  - scarface74 4y ago
    Yes and No. If I worked for an outside consulting company that would be true - with the inherent risks you stated. Working at AWS in ProServe, our compensation structure is the same as SDEs - 4 year initial offer, large prorated signing bonus, 5/15/40/40 RSU vesting schedule. It’s different for sales. The bright side is that there is always work. Worse case, I can be “hired” by another internal team that needs someone to implement a solution to show off a new service.
    - itake 4y ago
      I think you’re misrepresenting your story in your original comment. If you want to be an SDE at a Tier 1, you have to leetcode. There is no persuading the interviewer to pass you without testing your leetcode. If you are comfortable taking a non-SDE role, then there are opportunities at tech companies that don’t require programming skills or leetcode. I’m happy you have found an alternative career path, but you’re comparing apples and oranges.
      - scarface74 4y ago
        There are 2.7 million developers in the US. Most don’t work at a tier 1 tech company. My original story said nothing about where I work. I was originally referring to my process to get a software development job from 1996-2018. But it’s not an accident I make “FAANG money” without doing “leetCode”. While I fell into a position at AWS, high level consultants make more with the same skillset than your typical BigTech SDE once they build a base. It’s higher risk and more hustle though. I only brought up where I work now when someone brought up the r/cscareerquestions type reply of “TC”. I am very sincere about my lack of desire to ever be a software engineer for a large company. I would give up my current compensation and jump back over to the enterprise dev/architect side of compensation before I ever did that. Again, I already had the big house in the burbs, retirement savings, etc before AWS ever reached out to me. If I leave my current job at the time of my choosing, it will probably be a compensation cut and probably for some unknown company. I know for a fact that I could call up a few former managers who now work at different companies and they would give me a job faster than I could say “I am looking for…”
selimthegrim 4y ago
If you read his past post history he has had what you would call "technical" jobs before, even if you don't count this one.
tom-_- 4y ago
You seem to be implying "software engineers" require much more than a business degree, in which case I believe you to be a young person (< 30) and I forgive your naivety and the trolliness of your comment. SWE is not a profession that requires deep education in math and science, like a physicist or neurologist. Having anything beyond a bachelor's in CS is not worthwhile outside of maybe ML..maybe. A person with business degree who grinds toy problems on LC will almost always do better on FAANG coding interviews than a CS new grad with no grinding full stop. The degree is just a stamp for junior engineers to get their foot in the door, which is no longer needed once you have a stamp from a reputable tech company.
- amusedcyclist 4y ago
  Yes, SWE's require Computer Science, if you don't think so you've never done any real SWE work. Business majors do not teach you the problem solving ability required for even basic SWE work.
  - tom-_- 4y ago
    CS fundamentals can be readily learned without obtaining a degree. If you don't think so, then you've never met a self-taught programmer and are probably (no offense) someone with limited professional experience.